resign yourself to the influence of the earth
by purrfectj
Summary: This is the beginning of a series looking at Stardew Valley. Eventually will be a romance but it's also a character study of the farm, the valley, the valley's inhabitants, and a female farmer named Tess. Written in present tense and rooted in my love for the farm where I grew up as well as my lifelong fascination for Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Stay awhile, and listen.
1. it looks poorest when you are richest

When Tess is small, she keeps the letter from her grandfather in a little jeweled box her mother gave her for her seventh birthday. Lifting the lid plays a sweet, pretty, feminine tune, what she will learn later is _The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy_ from her favorite ballet, _The Nutcracker_. Every year, her father takes her and her mother to a performance at the university, Tess in her shiny black Mary Janes and a pretty pink dress, Mother in heels and pearls; it will be this memory she takes out the most often, replaying it again and again as she grows from girl to teen to young woman.

It will be the memory she keeps closest to her heart when her parents are killed in a car accident when she is twenty-two, the year she graduates magna cum laude from university with a degree in animal science. Her plans to attend veterinary school are derailed sharply: there is no money in her trust, all of it lost on a bad turn of the stock market, and it is get a job or starve. Joja Mart is happy to hire her for the gristmill of data entry and though the pay is shit, it's a job that will keep her in the tiny apartment in a not-quite-terrible neighborhood on the edge of downtown where she has lived throughout her college years. She stays while all of her friends go, to graduate school and to marriage and to live lives somewhere that is not _here_ and while she would like to resent their luck, she just lets the drudgery of putting one foot in front of the other begin to bury her natural inquisitiveness under the piles of bills that are her responsibility.

The pretty, foolish jeweled box is rarely opened. The letter she keeps in a drawer in her cubicle, the old-fashioned blue wax seal still unbroken. In the artificial glare and glow of the computer monitor, her sable brown hair grows ragged and slightly unkempt, her skin pales, and she hears the echo of her Grandfather's voice from childhood, her knees and elbows dirty from playing amongst the chickens, her whiskey gold eyes with their long, curling dark lashes bright on his face, ' _Hiding your light under a bushel, punkin.'_

She misses the sun.

A wave of layoffs and setbacks for Joja Mart send shockwaves through the cubicle rats. Tess has seniority, of a sort, but that also means she is entitled to more salary than some new kid straight out of college. At twenty-eight, in a non-rent controlled apartment that she can barely afford, Tess sits among the few treasures she possesses and thinks, desperately, of escape. The tidy brownstone where she grew up is gone, as is the fishing shack and the boat and the classic 'vette, all sold, and she wonders if there is anywhere left to go.

If she even has the energy to care.

One day, sitting at her desk and contemplating a collection letter from a hospital she's never heard of and the rumor of another possible pink slip, she finds the wax seal crumbling under her fingers, Grandfather's neat, square, old-fashioned penmanship somehow as familiar as her own bitten nails. For a moment, she hears his voice, slow and deep and careful. Relief is like a tsunami and she even manages a ghost of a smile when she gives her two weeks. The muscles of her face ache at the unfamiliar expression, but it's a good pain.

Ten boxes hold all of her worldly possessions. She has them shipped ahead of her, along with her bicycle, to the farm ( _Meadowbrooke_ , she thinks with a shiver of hope and dread), but the little jeweled box and the letter are wrapped carefully in non-reactive tissue paper and stowed in the backpack she is carrying when she steps off the bus in the cool, crisp air.

The pretty redhead who meets her at the bus stop introduces herself as Robin, the local carpenter. She has a lovely, sharply-boned face, kind eyes, and the hand that shakes Tess's is roughened and callused. Tess likes her immediately, particularly her gently encouraging smile when Tess sees just how much work is ahead of her to make the farm habitable, much less profitable. It is clear from the brush and the trees and the tumbled stones that no one has cared for the land since Grandfather. Tess supposes she could always run back to the city but, really, what's there but more heartache? Here, at least, is something she can _do_.

Mayor Lewis, for all his bluster, is just as welcoming as Robin. His silver mustache twitches at Tess's discomfiture when he mentions everyone in town has been asking after her, the new girl in town, and she wonders how small the community has to be that one new person can set the whole place aflutter. Small, she realizes, and close, because Mayor Lewis scolds Robin like a recalcitrant, well-loved child when she makes a deprecating remark about the admittedly rough and tumble cabin where Tess is expected to live. Robin just laughs, a hearty guffaw, and Tess hides her own bemusement by turning away, something clenching hard in her gut.

The two bicker behind her, something about house upgrades and carpentry work, Robin still laughing even as she pretends to be chastised, the Mayor's squint letting her know he's on to her shenanigans, while Tess tries to find her feet. The work doesn't scare her, she's worked hard before if, she has to admit, not against or with the elements, and the smallness of the town is a relief after the squawk and bray of the city. Maybe she can even have animals here, a dog or a pig or some chickens pecking and clucking busily, and she is so busy building barns in the sky she nearly misses the Mayor and Robin's wishes of good luck and sweet dreams.

"Tomorrow you ought to explore the town a bit and introduce yourself," the Mayor says, an order she is not inclined to ignore even if she preferred solitude, as she will need essentials like bread and sugar and lightbulbs, so she lifts her hand in a friendly wave as the two climb into the Mayor's shiny red pickup.

She unpacks only the jeweled box and the letter before climbing into the rickety single bed, dropping into a restless sleep full of uneasy dreams.

 _The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy_ fights the sigh and whistle of the wind for most of the night.


	2. took advantage of every accident

It's a three mile ride into town and she takes her time with it, grateful for the sun and the birds and the lightweight hooded sweatshirt she has on over a t-shirt and jeans that are white at the stress points, her running shoes the only thing about the outfit that isn't old, making a list in her head as she bumps over the rough dirt track, her long, thick braid slapping against her backpack with every rut and dip and jolt. She'll need work boots and sturdy gloves and maybe a pair of goggles to protect her eyes, a clothesline to string between the sturdy oak posts in the scrap of backyard, and eventually someone who can sharpen the serviceable tools she found in the shed. She knows, nominally, how to use the whetstone, but wouldn't it be nice to have a conversation with someone about something so basic and honest?

She's not sure she remembers how that would look or feel, honesty, but she thinks she might like it.

The town is adorable, cobblestone streets and arched stone bridges, tidy sidewalks swept clean, baskets of cheerful spring flowers in front of uncluttered homes with sparkling windows, a riverfront where even the bank has few weeds marring the charming view. The large Joja Mart, boxy and modern, would be cheaper and easier on her budget, but there's something amusingly childish about choosing, instead, to give her business to the small general store called _Pierre's_. Next to the old-fashioned glass doors that say 'pull' is a bulletin board and she pauses there after securing her bike on the provided rack near the street, her sunglasses perched atop her head as she squints at the advertisements for fishing tackle and mining jobs and the promise of eternal gratitude if a pretty girl will just bring someone named Sam a pretty rock.

She is still shaking her head over it all when she enters the store to the cheerful jangle of the little bell. The man at the counter waves cheerfully with a speculative curl to his lip and she waves back, a little wiggle of her fingers, and decides now is as good a time as any to make good on her promise to the Mayor. She strides up, swallows down nerves, holds out her hand across the counter, tries a smile, and says, "I'm Tess, the new owner of Meadowbrooke Farm."

The handshake is firm though the man's hand is soft, his eyes a deep, dark brown under his slightly shaggy red-brown hair, and the half-spectacles he wears are, she suspects, reading glasses he just doesn't bother to remove. His smile spreads, easy and wide, and he nods as he takes back his hand. "Welcome to Stardew Valley and to Pelican Town. I'm Pierre."

Pierre, it happens, knows a lot about the Valley, about the Town, and about the proper growth ratios for parsnips. Tess pulls a notebook and a pen out of her backpack and transcribes his nuggets of wisdom in her messy, nearly illegible scrawl, nodding along as he extolls the virtues of strawberries over cauliflower, something about costs and benefits and soil composition. She continues writing, her fingers starting to cramp, as he mentions a few people about town that could be helpful: Clint the blacksmith, Gunther at the library/museum, Gus at the saloon, Willy down by the docks, and even an older couple, Evelyn and George, who were friends of her grandfather. Then there are all the people _outside_ of town: Robin the carpenter whom she's already met and apparently lives a little north of the farm, up the mountain, Marnie who is described as the 'animal lady' and lives south of the farm near the river, and even some Adventurers' Guild that even mentioning makes Pierre laugh a little incredulously, showcasing a gap in his two front teeth. "That old mine is dangerous but they swear it's the best place to find raw minerals."

Tess refuses Pierre's kind, knowing offer of credit when she presents him with her overly long list of things she needs, charity something that only makes her chest feel tight, like she can't get enough air. Besides, she's not completely destitute though she may be eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and bowls of plain noodles for a while. She does agree to let him send his daughter, Abigail, out to the farm with her larger purchases, her thanks sincere and sweet enough that he is left smiling for minutes after the bell at the door tinkles her absence.

"Pretty girl?" his wife Caroline asks when she comes out of the door that leads deeper into the house, rising onto tiptoe for the kiss he's happy to bestow, and he brushes her blue-black hair back from her beautiful face and nods. "She's got her work cut out for her," Caroline remarks and he hums in agreement, watching through the big window as said girl walks past her bike in favor of strolling down the sidewalk toward the river, her hands in her pockets, her backpack slung over only one shoulder.

"She looks lonely." Both parents turn to regard their daughter in surprise where she's popped up from listening and watching and stocking shelves, pulling a laugh from her father and an eye roll from her mother when she makes a silly face.

"Well, she won't stay lonely long in this town. Too many people want to know her business," Caroline says briskly. Abigail makes another face, this one not quite so silly, and Pierre sighs and resists the urge to lean his elbows on the counter.

At the river's edge, Tess looks down into the water, so clear and clean and pure that she can see the pebbles and silt and fish, and breathes.

In, out.

In, out.

Her lungs fill, her lungs empty, and Tess kicks a pebble, watching the ripples as they expand in ever widening circles.


	3. through which the traveller

Because it's there and because she's stubborn and because she can, she works.

In the beginning, she has only the stamina for an hour or two, abandoning some chores half undone because farm work is absolutely nothing like the hour she spent every other day at the low-rent healthclub in the city, weights and treadmills and yoga and elliptical. Here it is chop and dig and lug and beat and hack and slash and crawl into the old-fashioned clawfoot bathtub, the water hot enough to scald if she can be bothered to heat it on the little two burner stove, cold enough to cause chills if she can't.

She supposes dying by drowning because she's too tired to climb out of the tepid water is probably a bad way to go but, really, she doubts the nosy folks of Pelican Town would be surprised. It's an uncharitable thought, an unworthy one since everyone she has met so far has been nothing but kind even when she can be, has been, shy and short and borderline rude.

Tess allows herself the luxury of the petty as she drags out of the bath, leaving the water for the morning, wrinkling her nose to realize just how dirty and scummy she's made it. "Dirt. Dirt, rocks, fallen logs." She mutters the words like a mantra, over and over and over again, as she pulls on a t-shirt and some old cotton yoga pants she wears for sleeping because fuck if she has the energy for _yoga_ when she's spent most of the day hacking ineffectually at a log blocking the path to the southernmost pond.

She doesn't _need_ access to the water, yet, but she _wants_ it and isn't that what she's doing out here? She planted fucking parsnips. She's never eaten one or seen one in her life but she planted them and goddammit, she will have access to that water or die trying for the turnips if not for her own sense of self-worth.

The laugh she huffs out as she falls back into the bed is both self-indulgent and self-deprecating. She's never cursed as much in her life as she does on this godsforsaken farm in the ass-butt of nowhere, and the laughter has turned slightly hysterical before she can stop it, and it is with the edge of hysteria that she slips into dreams.

Dreams, for Tess, are not restful. They are always, always in bright, brittle, brutal color, no pretty pastels or soothing watercolors or even just slightly moody black and white for Tess, oh, no, only dreams that will test and taunt her long after she blinks open bleary eyes to discover that a leak has started its inevitable slow drip drip drops onto her bedsheets.

Water. The planet, the people, the farm, everything thrives on water. As necessary as sunlight and air, water is the heartbeat of life, the pulse and pound, and after she sets a saucepan under the leak, Tess sinks onto the edge of the bed and back into the dream, the dream of water, a narrow, babbling brook that she follows because that is what, who, she is, she needs somewhere to go and to be, a reference point from which to begin (or end). She follows the glare and glint of the sun reflecting back from the rush and run as it joins with another, and another, and still another until she is hovering above them like a bird and she can see it spread out beneath her, blood and guts and glory, thick arteries and spiderweb veins, the sludgy, disgusting, beating heart.

A sensation of vertigo, the rip, pull, tear of the ground rushing up to meet her causes a pitch and roll in her stomach, end over end, until she splashes down like a comet, burning, burning, lungs full of water instead of air, gasping, thrashing, gulping. She is weightless, mobile, beautiful as she glides through the arterial spray and she thinks it says something frightening and true about herself that this dream of drowning that she has had so often is still happening here, where she has freedom and agency and liberty.

Perhaps escape was not, is not, her only craving.

Muscles ache and burn and knot, palms and heels blister and tear and harden, her skin warms to light, toasty gold as freckles march across her aristocratic nose and, curiously, spread over her clavicle. Her body becomes an alien landscape: the hip bones that begin to protrude, the posture that aches less to hold, the thighs that turn sleek, the biceps that are more than tiny bumps and are useful. She is both more and less herself, a thought for a philosopher and not for a farmer but one she has anyway.

The first parsnip harvest she cuts herself, rip, pull, tear, deep enough to see the white flash of bone and watches with the eerie comfort of deja vu as her blood rushes under, over, through, and out of her skin, drip drip drop, and the Valley gulps it down, so thirsty.

This is the day she meets Dr. Harvey, splattered in her own blood, blasphemes on her lips, and something like forgiveness in her whiskey brown eyes. She watches him as he bobbles the antiseptic, as he injects her twice with the numbing agent when the first refuses to take, as his long-fingered, slender, surgeon's hands stitch her up, precise, perfect, straight, better than her higgledy-piggledy rows of parsnips. Muzzy and disoriented, she reaches up and brushes the flop of his wavy brown gold hair from his forehead. "Going to pass out," she tells him cheerfully. "I hate needles."

And she does.


	4. cast my line upward into the air

Everything, Tess learns, is for sale. Before, when she was a cog in the wheel of wholesale domination, this would have bothered her, these sacrifices on the altar of commerce of pine cones and maple seeds and rocks and bundles of fiber but has she plans and plots to fund and while the work isn't mentally stimulating, it leaves her extra time to daydream, castles in the air and rows in the ground and a jaundiced eye on her funds.

Her first purchase is a fancy toolbelt and a large rucksack. The rucksack is to replace her backpack, the backpack that busted not a month into the parsnip harvest while full of the disgusting, dirty white vegetables, the toolbelt so she isn't constantly having to trudge back in from the back forty to the toolshed and switch out the axe for the maul or the hoe for the watering can and so they are really necessities that feel like her first splurge as she plunks down cash, a lot of cash for someone who hasn't had meat for about three weeks worth of meals now, and grins triumphantly at Pierre across the counter.

Pierre might think she's a little crazy, his eyebrows nearly to his hairline as he rings her up and hands her back her change and the heavy-duty canvas and leather rucksack and the supple leather toolbelt but she is well-pleased and would whistle as she leaves with her bounty if, in fact, she could.

She used to know how, before, with her tiny, straight, perfect baby teeth and her sweet, pouting baby mouth. She doesn't remember the ability to make music with her lips, only has the hazy memories fed to her by her mother before she died, Chanel No. 5 and the click-clack of heels on their worn wooden floors in the sprawling, drafty Victorian, Dad in his recliner sleeping with his hand flung over his face after work and a bourbon on the rocks, the smell of mediocre cooking and lemon Pledge, the cat who shed and claimed every surface as his. Petey was his name, some reference that always made Dad frown and Mom laugh and run her hand up his arm, leaning in to kiss his whiskery cheek.

Love had been abundant in her house. Love and comfort and praise but not so much common sense, her father a doer but not a planner, her mother a dreamer and not a doer, and Tess somewhere in the middle, content to laze about her room and think of the hazy, faraway tomorrow as when her life would begin. It's certainly taken a quick, unexpected swerve but, really, maybe that's what she needed, a swift, hard, rough shove at the fork in the road, a reminder that, as John Lennon croons in her ear, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

The Beatles, together and separately, ride along with her in the strong golden light as she cruises down to the beach, her voice lifting occasionally to sing the words she knows, particularly "she's got a ticket to ride" and "now the darkness only stays the night-time" and "makes you give in and cry" and "with every mistake we must surely be learning". It probably says something that she loves Harrison and McCartney more than Lennon and remembers Starr as the conductor on her second-favorite children's show.

Fresh off her triumph at Pierre's, she has enough time to finally introduce herself to Willy, the local authority on all things fishing and ocean and river and lake, fishing which she's been told can fill her belly and her wallet, and since she certainly likes eating fish and is game to try the gutting and cleaning and the actual fishing and money is probably a thing now and forever, amen, and god does she want to see the ocean, she bikes down the pier.

It's stunning, big and blue and expansive, and it smells like dead fish and salt and her grandfather's cologne, and Tess has the sudden, irrational urge to comb her fingers through her braid and leap from the end of the pilings, to sink and sink and sink until she is weightless, buoyant, surrounded and protected by the pulse and the pound, battered but never broken. "Fanciful bullshit," she says aloud and nearly swings around with a punch at the ready in startle and embarrassment when a harsh bark of a laugh sounds from directly behind where she is perched precariously on her heels over the water.

"Sorry, sorry, girly, didnae mean ta sneak up on ya." The man's voice is hoarse but not deep, caught somewhere behind his sternum, and he doesn't smile even as his ocean-blue eyes twinkle merrily at her from the weathered squint of his face. His beard is wild and woolly and puts Tess in mind of Redbeard and Bluebeard and pirates and privateers even as he reaches up and fiddles with the poor-boy cap on his head, poking at it until, she assumes, it gives in and lies like he wants on the abundant and unruly waves of his hair. His other hand holds a pipe, smoke still curling into the air, and Tess has a brief sensory tingle in her nose, tobacco and coffee and mint.

This is Willy. He calls her "girly" even after she gives him her name, tells her about his recent haul and his new rod with a squint that passes for his idea of a smile, and refuses her stunned, fumbling attempts to say thank you when he gives her a well-loved, perfectly balanced bamboo pole. "Throw ta hook in ta water, wait fer a bite, start reelin' but not too fast," is his advice and he means for her to do it now, while he watches, so she does, her arm trembling with nerves and excitement.

"Herring," he calls it when she manages, after ten bajillion tries, to get a damn fish to stay on the line long enough for her to haul it in, and Tess stares at him incredulously when he pronounces it too small to keep and throws it back in. Something about her frustration must communicate itself clearly, surely not because she makes a rude noise and says something very unladylike, because Willy does his amused squint and smacks her on the middle of the back. "Dinnae give up, girly. You'll get it."

Tess stays until the moon, half-bloated and controlling, beams down on the tide that thrums at the frequency of her heart.


	5. the sun is but a morning star

Tess takes Amy Poehler's advice to heart: she has a dance party nearly every day. Her copy of _Yes, Please_ (and, let's be real, of _Bossypants)_ is so dog-eared that she can recite portions of it by heart but she doesn't because, well, who else is there to listen but the parsnips and she might have a dance party of one but she keeps it confined to the cabin, the floorboards newly shiny and slick under her bare feet as she flashdances her way 'round and 'round and 'round again, dreamy ballads and aching blues and hard-driving rock and bubblegum pop. She is mouthing the lyrics into her hammer, pausing at the floor-length mirror opposite her bed in a hip-shot stance, the leather toolbelt that is already stained with sweat and dirt and some little bit of blood slung low on her womanly hips, and she pauses to stare at herself, sable brown hair and whiskey brown eyes and golden skin, freckles and muscles and the hint of roses in her cheeks.

There are some words for which Tess has no frame of reference in regards to herself, no anchor in the sea of her own insecurities, and beautiful is the one with the most deadly deep barbs. She has never been thin, will never be thin because even with the endless manual labor and steady diet of healthy, nutritionally dense food, there is still a softness to her lower belly, still a roundness to her cheeks, still the little girl inside who ate because it was there and she was bored and who had no one to tell her about eating her feelings. Normally this is where she would leave herself, spiraling down, down, down into depression staring in the mirror and listing her faults. Except, as she traces a path with her eyes over curves and dips and hollows, new and precious and unexpected, she somehow thinks of the handful of lovers she entertained in the city with a sort of knowing, winsome grace, a half-smile curling the Cupid's-bow of her lips:

Callum with his swept-back, surfer-cut blonde hair, changeable hazel eyes, and the scar on his lip that saved him from perfection. Well, physical perfection, because his personality was akin to a dick. He liked to take her to trendy restaurants and bars to show her off while, in private, he bitched about her thunder thighs and her ice cream obsession and the pair of Snoopy pajamas she wore at least once a week, soft and pillowy and completely asexual. He was even bad in bed, sloppy and quick and not in the fun, sexy, wreck me sort of way.

She threw out the pajamas, sadly, before she threw out the man.

Bray with his shaggy mane of dark curls, his soulful brown eyes, and his wide, wide mouth that was beautiful, especially when he pouted. He liked to write bad poetry and worse songs and he had a terrible relationship with his parents that should have clued her in that, perhaps, he was a bad bet in the romance department but he knew how to use that mouth and his long-fingered hands and so she kept him for longer than was wise. Or, more accurately, he kept her and she didn't think, hey, how can you afford all these fancy dinners and fancy chocolates and fancy shoes until the FBI was at her door asking her some very uncomfortable and pointed questions.

She kept most of the shoes but tossed the letter he sent her from prison.

Rex with his manicured fingernails and bright red hair and slim tailored suits, his unbearable smirk and incredible need for tenderness. Tess lets herself sigh, just a little, as she turns away from the mirror to finish dressing and start her day. That one, well, that one had been entirely her fault and it shames her even now to remember his startled blue eyes as she screamed at him to pack his shit and get out. She still has no idea what possessed her, what empty, hollow place inside of her made her hell-bent on ruining a good thing with a good man whose only crime, looking back, was his inescapable, borderline compulsive, need for order. Okay, so she rarely put the cap back on the toothpaste and she never put away the laundry and she left a pile of shoes at the door a foot (ha ha) high, and he was probably right that a disordered space was a sign of a disordered mind but something in her balked at his insistence she be someone she wasn't.

She didn't attend the wedding though he sent her an invitation with his personal regards for her happiness. She did send them a gift, a frivolous, pretty sculpture of her family's that Rex had coveted. The thank you card was, shockingly, signed by them both, and she thinks of it now as she lets the music play on, her callused fingers catching on the strands as she braids her hair.

It is Egg Festival Day so Tess takes a little more care with her appearance, the braid then twined around like a coronet, her usual jeans traded for caramel-colored slacks that fit loosely enough that she has to use one of her few belts, a melon-colored cardigan with faux-pearl buttons over a pale butter-yellow tank edged in lace, and she clasps a thin braided gold chain around her neck after using her mascara wand before declaring herself as ready as she can ever be to face the whole of Pelican Town and much of Stardew Valley. Tissues, lip gloss, and her wallet are tucked into her rucksack, the rucksack along only because Marnie let it slip that if she ever wanted to plant strawberries, a favorite of half the town and of Tess herself, she will have to buy the seeds at the Festival.

Ripe, plump, red berries dance in her head and tease her tongue with remembered sweetness as Tess bikes into town, the chocolate-brown flats she chose rather than her sturdy work boots or her tennis shoes cumbersome for pedaling, the gusty wind that smells of the threat of a coming storm most likely making a mess of her careful hairstyle, and she nearly turns right back around when she reaches the edge of town and sees that, indeed, all of the people she has met and a few she hasn't are gathered in the town square, talking and laughing. Nerves churn uncomfortably in her gut, nerves and the fluttery edge of panic, and it is only because Alex happens to look up at just that moment that she even gets off her bike, his often amused-at-her-expense expression daring her to recklessness.

"You're staring," she chides him boldly after locking her bike to its normal rack in front of Pierre's and relishes the hectic flush that rushes across his high cheekbones, the little moue he makes with his mouth that is an affectation because, of all of the things Alex is not, he is most certainly vain. Of course someone who spends most of his days in some sort of athletic endeavor and reaps the rewards of bulging biceps and washboard abs to go with the perfectly straight, even white teeth and carelessly wind-tossed golden brown hair and slightly crooked nose, well, perhaps they deserve to wallow in their own beauty. Tess knows she certainly appreciates the way he fills out the old green and yellow letterman's jacket, artfully faded in all the right spots, hanging open over the henleys he seems to own in every color under the sun, blueberry blue today which makes his already startling blue eyes somehow even more uncomfortably rich but not direct, oh, no, Alex is a master at the art of flirtation as he lowers his lashes and gives her a look that causes her insides to squirm like the worms she's been using to bait her fishing hooks.

He saunters closer, all power and grace, and flicks a finger down the bridge of the nose her Grandfather told her she got from a faery, so small and sharp. "Hard not to stare, new girl," he says and Tess wonders when it got so damn hot outside suddenly, she's burning up, and she almost opens her mouth and says something bold and exciting and most likely incredibly inappropriate and awkward when Haley appears suddenly at Alex's side, sliding her prettily manicured hand with proprietary grace into the bend of his elbow and pouting up at him with her ridiculously full mouth.

Tess she ignores which, really, that's actually pretty sweet because Tess has absolutely nothing to say to Haley, Haley of the tousled blonde hair and pansy blue eyes and fluttering false eyelashes, Haley who is wearing a feminine spring frock and impractical heels that, Tess notes with catty satisfaction, have mud on them. Behind Haley, though, is her sister Emily who Tess does like and understand, Emily who is wearing a casual poppy red shirtwaist dress with chunky wedges and a big grin, her shockingly blue hair parted on the side and messy in a way Tess suspects is due more to the aforementioned wind than careful styling. Emily bops up, nudges Tess with her hip, makes a silly face at Alex and Haley, and exclaims, "Farmer Tess! Come to hunt eggs with us town folk?"

"No," Tess admits honestly but she softens the denial with a smile and a return nudge to Emily, gesturing up toward the booth where she can see Pierre holding court and happily counting money from a battered tin box. "I need strawberries."

Emily takes her around, introduces her to a handful of people she hasn't met, shares a plate of tea cakes while everyone else slightly young rushes off to find the fabled eggs, rolls her eyes and whispers that Abigail _always_ wins because she cheats, and looks startled when Dr. Harvey wanders up and asks to sit. "It smells like rain," is his conversational salvo and Emily looks bored already but Tess smiles at him, bright and welcoming, and nods.

"I love that smell, ozone and water, and if you look over there," Tess turns and points out to the west, her hand brushing his cheek for which she does not apologize because she only half-realizes she's done it, whiskers and skin and warmth against the callused pads of her skin, "You can see the line of the storm, headed this way." She sighs, content, and lets her hand sink to her lap. "Tomorrow will be a good day for my crops."

Harvey offers her a lift home when she realizes she can't haul the strawberry plants on her bike or in her rucksack without crushing them, huffing a little as he drops the tailgate of his ubiquitous truck and tries to lift her bike up and in. They talk about the stars on the way back to the farm, Tess mapping the few constellations she knows with her fingertips on the windshield, and his smile is a wide flash of self-deprecating humor under his mustache when she hops out and leaves him with the strawberries and gets out her bike herself. He's careful with the seedlings, setting them on the porch gently, and she is suddenly seized with the memory of his hands on her skin as he stitched her closed.

"I'll bring you some of the first harvest." At his long, measured look, she babbles on, her skin prickling as if lightning has struck nearby, static electricity, static cling, zip, zap, hair on end as she babbles on, "In payment."

There, in the gloaming, twilight painting his skin in the silver of the moon and the black of the encroaching night, Harvey shakes his head at her, slowly, and looks briefly disappointed. "Sleep well, Tess," he says, not at all what she thinks he was going to say.

The rain chases him down the drive, his taillights twinkling scarlet as the thunder rolls in off the mountain, a dull roar.


	6. instead of a million count half a dozen

She names the dog Link because he is brave and bold and handsome, his long, thick tail thumping fast and happy on her porch when Marnie tells her she found him sitting, just waiting, waiting as he's doing now, politely, to be asked inside. He is a bigger dog than she would normally gravitate toward, a true golden retriever with sunshine fur, lean muscles, and big, dark eyes, and when she steps back, he nudges at her bare legs with his cold wet nose and then goes streaking past her, flopping down with a huge doggy sigh on the faded hooked rug by her bed.

"Well, I guess he's staying then." Marnie says it cautiously, her hazel eyes still wary of the newcomer, and Tess knows it's well-deserved wariness, Marnie has caught her more than once mooing at the cows in the pen by the ranch, body poised to actually climb over and hug one of the huge, docile creatures and even though she's explained several times that she has a degree in animal science and adores animals of all shapes and sizes, Marnie is more protective of her animals than she is of her niece, Jas.

"He is staying." Tess repeats it firmly, already moving away from the door to the dog who blinks lazily at her, his mouth opening in a big doggy grin when she sinks down next to him and buries her rough, nicked and bandaged hands in his fur, rubbing and stroking and picking out burrs and off ticks. She is unaware she is crooning the whole time, crooning nonsense and baby babble and telling him whose a good dog, is it you, yes it is, such a good boy, so handsome and smart and brave.

The screen door slaps shut but neither Link, drowsy and content, nor Tess, in the fierce tight grip of puppy love, of not being alone, notice as Marnie clomps down the stairs.

He does not like the idea of a bath. He plops his butt down in defiance, tilting his head as if to ask her if she's crazy when she slips into the cool, murky water of the northern pond, making come hither motions with her fingers, slapping the water invitingly, trying not to shiver in the thin tank and cutoffs because the freaking water is cold even as it only reaches her knees, not yet enough spring sun to make it warm. "Fucking hell," she grumbles and is crawling out in preparation of wrestling him in when he barks once, deep in his chest, and then sails over her head, landing with a loud explosive splash behind her. She is immediately drenched, braided hair to squishy mud toes, and this is how Shane, who's been sent by Marnie on some fool's errand to bring baby chicks to a woman who hasn't even fixed the hole in her roof according to town gossip, finds her: soaking wet, bedraggled, her tank see-through, and laughing as she soaps up the dog who whoofs in friendly warning and slaps her with his flagship tail.

"Marnie said you needed some chickens." She raises her eyebrows at the man's curt tone, at his unshaven face and bloodshot eyes, and dumps more soap on Link because if she doesn't she will snatch the box of cheeping, scrabbling chicks from rude Shane's slightly shaking hands. _Her chickens, her dog, her farm_ , out, out, out!

Possession is nine-tenths of the law and Tess revels in it, revels in the dog who sprawls out in the sun on the porch, agreeing that yes, of course he'll lie on the rug from inside so he doesn't get dirty again but you do know I'm going to go roll around in the grass as soon as I'm almost dry, right, revels in the peeping baby chicks who are soft and fluffy and unafraid, pecking at her fingers as she rigs a place in the corner of the kitchen for them, a heat lamp that she digs out of storage and scares away a spider when it clicks on. The chicks immediately stop crying for their mother and fall asleep in a heap and Link somehow uses his brute strength to push open the screen door and this time when he curls up it's next to the box of sleeping babies as if to say, 'Well, then, go on. A coop won't build itself and you're useless with a hammer.'

She is, she really is unless she's singing into it, so she changes into mostly clean jeans and a t-shirt and bikes up the mountain. Robin claps her hands together in glee when she explains she needs a chicken coop and a silo, giggles when Tess explains she has more than enough wood for both projects, winces when she has to tell Tess how much building both will cost. Tess, however, agrees to the amount without blinking because she stocked up on peanut butter and jelly just last week and now she has strawberries and wild spring onions and dandelions and leeks to make salad and to sell.

Oh, but she'll need dog food.

Link turns his nose up at the organic wet food from Pierre's but he gobbles up the dry cheap kibble from Joja Mart. His fur is soft as silk under her fingers as she leans against him, feeling him breathe as they both watch the chicks scramble in the box for the little bit of dried corn she brought them. One of them, the smallest, pecks at the box near Tess's knee until Tess dips a fingertip in and rubs over its head. It immediately chirps happily and Tess's heart feels like it's seven sizes too large for her chest.

She names the chicks Larry, Moe, Curly, and Shep, and both she and Link fall asleep in the corner of the kitchen, wrapped around each other and the battered box filled with life and trust from Marnie's ranch.


	7. to drive life into a corner

The chores are never ending if she wants to make a profit. The couple of rusty old sprinklers she found in the shed, the kind that spin in lazy circles making rainbows, don't even reach half of what she's planted and the big, greenish-grey metal watering can with its elegant long spout and half-rusted handle is fucking heavy when she totes it around. She's reading farming magazines in her spare time, learning about crop rotation and proper fertilization and how to build irrigation ditches when before she would have been buried in love's labor lost or the latest, greatest pick from goodreads, but for now she's lugging around the stupid can so she can sprinkle water on the strawberries and turnips and green beans and cauliflower and kale and potatoes, on the surprisingly soldier straight rows of bright, cheerful tulips along the front porch, and on the plot of blue jazz she meant to design as a sort of butterfly garden but got distracted halfway through by the nail she managed to drive into the meaty flesh under her thumb rather than into the fencepost.

Dr. Harvey is probably paying for a luxury vacation with all of the money she funnels his way; the nail that is rusty and has every possibility of giving her tetanus, a shot she hasn't had since she went to college. Of course he's kind about it, remembers every time she slinks into his clinic blushing and nervous and embarrassed and angry because she's blushing and nervous and embarrassed that she is a terrible patient who faints at the sight of a needle. It's likely hard to forget the tattered, ragged woman who touches him without permission before passing out in his lap or somehow insulting him for giving her a ride home.

Dr. Harvey is a man who needs you to ask him permission.

She thinks about him a lot, more than she probably should, more than she thought she would when she is buying Alex's affection with a twice-weekly egg delivery, his sapphire blue eyes lighting up every time he sees her but she does not think of Alex at night in her narrow, small bed, no, it is not Alex's muscles or smirk but Dr. Harvey's kind, patient hands on her skin, slippery fine hair under her fingers, seductive rasp of sharp, prickly whiskers, as pleasure washes in and out and over her, slow and easy as the evening tide.

She avoids him in town, avoids him as she avoids most everyone save Emily and Alex and the inevitable Pierre, but still there have been the couple of times she's seen him in Pierre's, Pierre grinning as they haggle fiercely over some seeds or fertilizer she wants, Dr. Harvey's eyes on the back of her neck, burning bright, goosebumps breaking out over her body, ants marching across her nerves. And the day she nearly bowls him over near the waterfront, her fishing pole and her day's catch on its stringer slung over her shoulder, wet slapping obscene sound on her almost bare legs, peeling sunburn marking her cheeks and forehead and the bridge of her nose with streaks of white, his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his baggy chinos until they aren't, until they're curling around her biceps to steady her and she thinks he's going to kiss her, his mustache twitching under his so serious forest eyes, deep and dark, and she inhales sharply, her thighs trembling.

But he doesn't. He sets her gently on her feet, makes sure she's stable, and before she can say so much as "Hello" or "Thanks" or "Don't go", he's walking away from her, back stiff and straight.

She leaves a pint of strawberries for him with Maru, his nurse who is also Robin's daughter, gorgeous skin in a shade somewhere between dusk and dawn and intelligent, snapping black eyes. Maru frowns down at the red berries, her generous mouth pursed, and just shakes her head. "I'll make sure he gets them."

Tess is halfway out the door of the thankfully, blissfully bare clinic when Maru calls out, snap sharp and jagged, "He likes pickles."

Alex, she's sure, would make a snappy comeback about a sour disposition and in fact does when Tess tells him the story later in the week over slightly scorched and runny eggs that Alex has cooked himself on this raining, miserable late spring morning, his grandparents already out for the day, pretty faded Evelyn who has been a fount of information about flowers, happy to chatter away to Tess over tea and cookies about gardens and soil and sour, depressed George who tells her she looks like her grandmother and that her grandfather was a swindler who knew how to horsetrade with an expression that says clearly Tess did not inherit that particular skill.

Alex doesn't have much to say after his sly comment about Dr. Harvey, picking over his eggs with listless movements of his chopsticks. If she were a better friend, a better person, she would ask him what's wrong but other people's problems are always a sticky morass for Tess: she feels too much too soon and will, can, does sink slowly into the bog, flailing uselessly until someone with more sense and less sympathy or empathy comes along and saves them both.

Broken people have always called to her, the siren's song of _t_ _ell me about it if it's something human, let me into your grief._ Oh, Robert Frost, but if they let you in, they expect you to forgive because to forgive is divine, and Tess is not good at forgiveness, not good at the glass filling back up to the top, brimful of possibilities, no, Tess likes a glass that is cracked and leaking, spilling regret onto the carpet.

Dr. Harvey knows this about her, duct tape as bandages, nails under skin, blood smeared on his pristine white coat, something like disapproval in his eyes when he sees her coming out of Alex's house after breakfast. She stands in the driving, chilly rain and smiles at him, a corner of her mouth quirking in a self-deprecating half-grin, her hand lifting to wave, the curl of her fingers almost a come-hither motion. To her shock, delight, horror, anticipation, he obeys, meeting her halfway between Alex's house and Pierre's, somewhere behind the saloon but far enough away from the dumpster that the smell is downwind.

Peering up at him from under the tangle of her soaked eyelashes and dripping hair, she reaches out and counts the buttons on his bottle fly green jacket, one, two, three, four, hovering somewhere around the slim line of his hips when his fingers, those fingers she's dreamed of dipping between her thighs, long and nimble and deep, wrap around her wrist, loosely but with intent, and the breath catches sharply behind Tess's bellybutton, roll, pitch, dive.

"Tess." His voice is careful and slow, a man soothing a wild animal, and she watches as blood rushes to the surface of his skin, painting the hollows of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose cherry red. "Tess," he says, again, only her name, and then he sighs and lets her go, releasing her and stepping back. He does not stuff his hands in his pockets but instead leaves them between them, almost but not quite touching hers, almost but not quite close enough to tangle their fingers together, almost but not quite enough but maybe a little bit, maybe almost there. His eyes roam her face as she remains perfectly still.

 _She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see, blind creature; and awhile he didn't see._

Steam rises between them, two damp bodies yearning toward each other, toward safety and comfort and light. Toward what's missing and torn and bloodied in the pounding, wet rain, slick skin, panting breaths, missed opportunities. Tess does not move forward and she does not let her gaze waver from his and she does not ask permission as she spreads her hand, palm open, fingers splayed, over his left pectoral muscle.

 _But at last he murmured, 'Oh,' and again, 'Oh.'_

It is not that she runs from him.

She runs from herself.

This is the day Tess straps a sword, slightly bent and wavering but sharp for all of that, to her belt and plunges into the dark of the mines.

 _There's something I should like to ask you, dear._

 _You don't know how to ask it._

Lying in her bed, her own fingers the wrong size, shape, texture, length, ability, Tess whispers, "Help me, then."


	8. to live what was not life

Shep is devoured as the sweltering, oppressive heat of summer snaps its jaws around the mild, wet spring. It is Link who leads her to the handful of speckled feathers, nature red in tooth and claw and entrails, Link who supports her as she sinks down onto the ground to mourn her poorest layer but sweetest hen, Link who whines and stands sentinel as she spreads her fingers out over the dusty ground, digging into the dirt, ragged nails, ragged girl, ragged pain, ragged breaths as she digs and digs until she can deposit what is left of her lost one into the jagged pit of her own guilt: it is Tess who has left the coop unguarded and defenseless.

Grief lives here, in a grave over which she carefully plants scarlet hen and chicks, _sempervivum_ 'Ruby Heart'; in a fanciful jeweled box that plays a song from childhood, _celesta_ Tchaikovsky; in the shrine she's only recently uncovered on the far northwestern corner of the farm, _morte_ grandfather.

There is no absolution to be found in the hack, slash, loot of the mines, in the cast, reel, wet of the water, in the whack, thump, crash of the trees, in the burn, hiss, warmth of the tequila in the bottle Gus obligingly leaves alongside the shot glass, lime wedges, and salt shaker on her table when she asks. She's lost count of how many she's had, one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor, and she's giggling or crying or maybe just drooling when Pam, a local with a taste for drink, plops down at the table and takes a shot straight from the bottle.

"Shit, ta keel ya is right," she grunts, rattling the table with the force of her laugh, and Tess peers up at her through a curtain of the sable brown hair she's left down, rioting not quite as much in the humidity as Pam's bottle-blonde 'do but close, sticking to her sweaty forehead in ropes and tickling her eyelashes, and she makes a noise that could be agreement, could be denial, and is really just a fuck off. Pam, who in the past has ignored most of Tess's attempts to be friendly, just flicks her fingers at the dismissal and pulls out an old-fashioned filigreed silver lighter and an actual cigarette case, navigating them both carefully with her deadly, pointed French manicure. She purses her painted lips and blows elegant smoke rings at odds with her garish robin's egg blue eyeshadow and Tess sinks lower on her spine, propping her booted feet up on the chair across from her, not sure what to do with her arms or her hands or her face now that she isn't drinking. "What's got yer panties in a twist, farmgirl?"

' _Consign to thee, and come to dust'_ is what she wants to say but that's not polite dinner conversation much less what you say to a fellow drunk at whatever the fuck o'clock it is in this hole-in-the-wall shitstain of a pub and god, why did she stop drinking again? So Tess just jerks a shoulder and drops her head back, the chair hard and unforgiving and chilly against her nape, the ceiling lined in pretty silver hammered tin spinning lazily, and she might pass out for a couple of minutes or an hour or for a day if it weren't for the pale, upside down face, crowned by unruly raven's black hair and unsmiling eyes the color of rich, dark chocolate that swims into focus, the thin, never smiling mouth somehow softening as she tilts this way and that and squints to see him better. "Sebastian?"

"Yeah." It's all he says, his breath tickling her chin, and she waits expectantly for more from the taciturn and abrupt computer programmer who lives in the basement of his mother and step-father's house and smokes a joint almost every night out by the lake near the mine. She knows this because the perfume of it drew her to him, musk and dusk filling her lungs, the almost-forgotten scent of the tiny dorm room with the world-weary roommate who just could not believe she'd been stuck with such a goody-goody, god, what a bitch that you won't let me smoke in here, and Tess had discovered quickly that it was better to just go with the flow, man.

To this day, she thinks of Aubrey with a mixture of frustration and guilt and regret that smells like Sebastian's clothes as they lay in the grass by the water and listen to the frogs' croak and to the crickets' chirp and to the water's burble, a backwoods song.

"Bas?" she prods when he crouches down next to her, propping his chin on her shoulder, and his laugh is fog and the slow fire of the tequila in her belly, deep and sinful.

"Tess," he says and brushes his cool, dry lips over her cheek. "Let's get you home."

"Home is where it hurts," she murmurs into his bicep as he helps her to her feet and cradles her gently against him when she sways, almost like they're dancing, and she lets him lead, shuffle, shuffle, step, glide, and she hears him make another of those chuckles deep in his chest that's good enough to eat when she mutters, "You're no Lucky, Bas."

"A fine romance, my good woman, my strong, aged-in-the-wood woman," he hums into her hair, a surprising and kindred spirit who wasn't afraid to curl up with her and watch old dancing movies, and so they do, late at night sneaking into his room reeking and giggling like schoolchildren, the glow of the computer screen bathing them in artificial cheer, and Tess snuggles closer, burying her nose in the curve of his collarbone and her fingertips hooking into the belt loops of his jeans over the non-existent bumps of his hipbones, and his breath hitches and sighs out. "Tess," he says, again, quieter, wary and weary, and she lifts her head to find he isn't looking down at her but over her shoulder at something in the still, moonless night.

Before she turns, her heart gives a wild, erratic jerk and she groans, a wounded wild animal, and Sebastian is a solid, slender comfort at her back as she step, step, spins to face the music and Harvey's carefully neutral expression. He is judging her and it stings, judging her as she is not allowed to judge him, red-faced and sweaty stumbling from Pierre's great room after aerobics with the older female population of Pelican Town, a towel around his neck, a sweatband holding back the waves of his hair, smelling of pheromones and apology and fear as she stares at him, wide-eyed and trying not to laugh or smash her mouth against his, their friendship tenuous yet and built on a shaky foundation of her support of his lectures on health to George and how his hands continue to feel, patching up her skin and monitoring her temperature and checking the heartbeat thundering beneath her breast, _it beats for you._

Built on sitting under a tree by the sluggish river as it flows through town, not speaking, and Tess has the absolute, terrible, worst realization that she dreams of drowning so often because every man she considers friend meets her on the bank of some turbulent body of water. "Fuck my life," she says, sagging back into Sebastian as Harvey cha-chas away as fast as he can, shoulders stiff.

Sebastian tucks her into her bed tenderly as if she is his half-sister Maru, brushes another of those kisses on her cheek that means she's important to him, and shakes his head lightly when she asks him to stay. "You'll not want me here," he whispers and is gone, the door closing behind him as Shep curls up on his rug by the bed and huffs out a sigh.

Grief lives here, in a heart that yearns and hopes and wishes, in the stumbling crawl to the toilet through alternating soothing shadow and harsh sunlight where Tess heaves up what little she's eaten in the past days of toil and drink and burial, in the gentle weight of Shep at her hip, his muzzle laid across her back in comfort and solidarity, in a heart that wishes it could _fear no more_.

Grief lives here.


	9. so companionable as solitude

Grandpa captures her last red checker with a click and a satisfied stretch of his legs, his eyes twinkling stars in the weathered handsomeness of his face. She reaches across the red and black squares to touch his paper-thin cheek, his whiskers rasping and scraping at the sensitive, soft pads of her tiny fingers and she is only eight, rounded with baby fat and steeped in love, tawny skin and big eyes and long, long lashes that he tells her tickle as she crawls over the checkerboard to cuddle into the softness of his chambray shirt, his work-roughened hand catching on the skin of her back, fingers almost long enough to curl around her edges. "Punkin'," rumbles affectionately under her cheek through his wide, deep chest and he smells like dirt and damp and the sharp forest edges of his aftershave and Tess is drowsy and content, slipping toward dreams as he croons, "Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…"

He paints a picture with words, this first man who loves her outside the charmed circle of _mother_ and _father_ , this man who lives alone in a ramshackle house on a farm near the sea, who builds her a dollhouse with silver grey driftwood and populates it with exquisitely formed miniatures from his carving knife, who twirls her 'round and 'round until she's dizzy and half-sick and laughing, who retreats into silence, his silver beard trailing down his chest, his sky blue eyes far away under the stubborn curl of iron grey hair that refuses every effort he makes to tame it. The story he gives her in his sonorous, patient voice is about a princess with grit and will and grace, no fair maiden to be rescued but brave and fearless and the engineer of her own destiny, swords and magic and the endless darkness of space wrapped in a tidy bow of duty and honor, punctuated by an ending with her prince that is less _happily ever after_ and more _so they worked and lived and became_.

And oh, how she works, the farm that is sweat and toil and hard, physical, demanding labor, the woman that becomes cussedness and perseverance and sweat, the love and tending that builds muscle and guts and heart, Meadowbrooke that is home and roots and Grandfather's gift of connection, to the land and to the town and to the people and, finally, maybe, to herself.

She might not be destined to be a princess with cinnamon buns of steel but dammit if she won't be the best fucking farmer Stardew Valley has ever seen.

In a sickening, breathless lurch, her coffers overflow and Tess is profit rather than loss.

Robyn extends the cabin into a house, a fancier bathroom with a real tub and shower, a bigger bedroom that boasts a fanciful, curved iron bedstead with its decadent mattress the size of a lake and handstitched quilt, builds her a new barn and expands the chicken coop for the cow, sheep, and four more chickens Tess buys, cash money, from Marnie, slapping it down on the counter and then apologizing when Marnie chuckles and pats her hand. "If you don't name 'em, it's not so sad to lose 'em."

Tess makes sure Lucy, Fred, Ethel, and Ricky are happily clucking away with Larry, Moe, and Curly, corn and hay and the foul-smell of chicken poop that is amazing for her tulips, before she checks on Clarabelle the cow and Shaun the sheep, Clarabelle as docile as any heifer has any right to be, Shaun vocalizing her dismay at Tess daring to touch her soft furry coat. She introduces Link to everyone as if it is a garden party, tea and cakes and fresh cream, and he is soon panting happily by his water bowl, animals running amok in the tall grasses she's let grow just for this purpose under his benevolent dog gaze.

From Pierre, delivered by Abigail who accepts Tess's harried invitation to come back by later, everyone else is, there are saplings, tangled roots wrapped in thick burlap, two for each season, cherry and apricot and apple and orange and pomegranate and peach, and Tess nearly dances as she digs deep in the soil, pours in the water, taps out the dirt, and is happy as a pig in shit as the baby leaves rustle in the dry, hot wind.

She luxuriates in the spray of her new showerhead before her guests arrive, sets out crackers and cheese and fruit to complement the first bottles of the wine she's made that tastes of flowers, served in the delicate, elegant stemmed glassware that had been her grandmother's when she married. Sam, Sebastian, Maru, Emily, and finally Abigail, looking startled to see everyone sprawled out, on, in, and around Tess's bed, trickle in until Tess's small troop of misfits is complete, Alex and Hailey having declined her invitation, Hailey with a moue of distaste and Alex with a gentle reminder that he wants to be her friend, not her boyfriend, and Tess wonders why it's difficult for Alex to make the distinction when Sebastian sprawls like a lazy, unapologetic cat on her floor and wrestles with Link.

"He's an idiot," Emily says solemnly, her head on Maru's shoulder, her legs in Sam's lap, Abigail at her feet, and Tess pokes Sebastian with her foot as he rolls by, Link a golden lump at his side. He winks and keeps rolling, Link panting happily, pink tongue lolling out of his long golden muzzle.

"Why didn't you ask anyone to dance, T?" The question comes from Sam, good-hearted, sweet-natured Sam, and it sends Sebastian into snorting laughter, causes Emily's cheeks to pinken prettily and Maru's to pale, Sebastian's half-sister gulping at her wine while Abigail's brow creases. It's a question with an expiration date that has long passed, the Flower Dance having come and gone weeks ago, before…

Before.

It's as much of a concession as Tess can make to the beginning of summer, so bright in promise and so painful in execution. They are weeks beyond before, even, heading into the now of late summer, slipping inexorably into fall. She wonders if Sam asks here, in front of everyone, because she disappeared so early from the Luau just last week, no time for idle chatter, work, work, work.

If only they knew.

"He wouldn't have said yes," is the truest answer she can give and Sam tilts his head at her much as Link does when he doesn't understand what she's asking him to do, his lips pursing and his eyes guileless and shining.

"That's not true," he rejoins and Sebastian abruptly sobers and sits up, anchoring himself to Tess's knees with a protective arm that she pats absently, her lips curving slightly as she takes a sip from her glass, the liquid gold and shimmering in the light. Maru, however, nods, slowly, and Emily's eyes swing wildly from Sebastian to Tess to Sam to Maru and back again, some sort of crazed tennis bystander at a train wreck as Abigail turns to peer out the window.

"He would have…he wanted…" Maru has to clear her throat, the words croaking but coming out finally. Sebastian's hand tightens on Tess's ankle. "He wants you."

"He wouldn't have said yes," she repeats and knows she is being more mysterious than warranted when her smile spreads, her cheeks aching in counterpoint to her calm statement of rejection but oh, oh, how sweet it is, how wondrous and new and special to have this secret, this _feeling_ that belongs only to them.

Leaning forward, Tess presses a kiss to the top of Sebastian's head just as the door opens. Harvey is framed there in the soft white glow of her porchlight, lop-sided smile under perfectly groomed mustache, baggy goldenrod sweater with buttons marching down the front that he wears because she told him she thought Mr. Rogers was sexy, pair of khakis she doesn't recognize, still sharp at the seams and a dark, loamy brown, his new bright red trainers, a gift from Tess, peeking out from the hem, and she can feel everyone in the room holding their breath as he lets the screen door bang shut behind him.

"Hope I'm not too late," he says, setting down the beer and pickled green beans that first lured him in a day or so after the Luau, the Luau where he cornered her behind Elliott's house after the Governor declared their soup pleasant with a frown that Mayor Lewis rushed to placate. Harvey, too, is frowning, but his eyes are watchful, a weight and expectation in his gaze so at odds with his usual stiff, slightly formal and distant demeanor that Tess feels her thighs go loose and her belly go tight.

"Sweetheart," he says, his voice pitched low so no one hears them and so, she suspects, her nipples will peak just as they do for him, for the little growl beneath his crisp consonants and the way his fingertips dig into her lower back, her suspicion confirmed when he crowds her even further and she smells ale on his breath, the hint of hops and courage. Tess rises onto her tiptoes and nuzzles her mouth into the open collar of his shirt, long-sleeved even here on the beach where almost everyone else is wearing shorts or bikinis, and their groans mingle as she finds his skin and sinks her teeth into the meat of him. His breath blows hot in her ear and his voice is warning and invitation all at once: "Don't keep running away."

In the story, she doesn't. In reality, it as if Harvey's wistful request has leant her wings, her mad dash back to the farm ending in a miserable evening alone and pacing, alone and crying, alone and cursing.

Her hands are shaking because she's terrified and angry because she's terrified and Harvey is staring at her across the counter in his clinic the next day as afternoon and evening kiss hello, Maru long gone, his white coat half-hanging from one shoulder as she pushes her offerings aggressively across the counter, hyper-aware of her own harsh breathing as he turns and finishes taking off his coat to hang it up, his movements careful and somehow gentle as he smooths out the last of the wrinkles and the drabs of Tess's patience.

It makes her feel infinitely better when she sees his hands tremble as she says his name, "Harvey," and then, again, no less demanding but softening, edged in hope and wishing as he turns his wide forest gaze on her, as he steps out from behind the counter and into her, their bodies as neatly ranged as they can be when he is half a foot taller than she. She curls into him, into this man who holds her as if she's both fragile and precious, a gift and a promise, into this man who is older than she by a decade that she has led on a much more merry chase than she imagines he wanted.

"You're just in time," Tess says, holding her hand out to Harvey as he steps across the shiny new wide plank pine floor to her side, as she lifts her face for the kiss he is obliging enough to give even as he blushes, his hand coming up to cup her face, his mustache tickling her nose. "Hi, handsome," she breathes across his lips and dimly she hears Maru laugh, Abigail choke, Sam sigh, Emily cheer, and Sebastian groan as Harvey tucks her hair behind her ears.

This isn't a fairy story her wise, aged Grandfather is telling her. This is her life. This is her life as Harvey sinks down in the space her friends have made for him, his arm around her waist, her hand on his thigh, and her heart fluttering like a bird settling onto its perch for the night, fast and strong and steady.


End file.
